Discussion with julian, id like to share a little bit about the history of the strand. The strand was founded in 1927 on book row. Stretching from union square, book row gradually dwindled from 48 bookstores until, after 93 years, the strand is the sole survivor. Now run by Third Generation owner nancy bass. We want to thank all for our support because without all of you, we wouldnt be where we are today. And also an update on the store in case youre curious, the physical store in union square is open, weve been open for about two weeks. So wear a mask and stop by if youre in the area. Tonight were excited to have Julian Zelizer who is celebrating the release of his book, burning down the house. Julian is a class of 1941 professor of history of Public Affairs at Princeton University and a cnn political analyst. His most recent book coauthored by our moderator, kevin kruse and the fierce urgency of now. Zelizer has been awarded fellowships with the New York Historical society, the russell sage foundation, the ghoulen heym Foundation Guggenheim foundation and new america. Tonight hell be joined by cell phone kruse, a political kevin kruse suburban history in 20th century america. He is particularly interested in segregation and the Civil Rights Movement as well as the [inaudible] excuse me, the rise of religious naturalism and the making of modern conservativism. His books include atlanta and the making of modern conservativism, under one nation, one nation under god, how Corporate America [inaudible] and the recently published fault lines. Professor kruse was honored as one of americas top young innovators in the arts and sciences by the Smithsonian Magazine and listed as one of the top historians in history by the history news network. He has recently been named distinguished lecturer by the organization of american historians and by John Simon Guggenheim fellowship. Without further ado, Julian Zelizer and kevin kruse. Hi there. Hey there, everybody. How you doing . So well have a little chat there and pretend hundreds of people arent lurking in the background. Its good to see you. You know, as we just heard, we worked together on a book called fault lines which hoveredded u. S. History from 1974 to the present, and Newt Gingrich was a big part of that. So im excited to dig into his career and your terrific book about him. You know, a lot of people, i think a lot of americans, probably a lot of the audience which i see is worldwide probably only know gingrich from his time as speak or. He kind of, i think for a lot of americans, burst on the scene in 1994. But, of course, he had about two decades of political activism and a career in congress before that. Tell everyone about young Newt Gingrich, a youngish Newt Gingrich, when he started in congress, that first run for office, what he was like, what he was all about and where he was coming from. Yeah. This is [inaudible] welcome to everyone, thanks for joining us. It is nice to see people from all over. Gingrich was quite a character. He had been an army brat, kind of grew up living in different parts of europe. Family was originally from right outside harrisburg, pennsylvania, a working class area that was republican. And he ended up in georgia. He went to emory, he married a High School Math teacher x and he then went to tulane where he got a ph. D. In history and studied colonialism, colonial policy. And then he moved to his first job, just as we did, to west georgia college, and he never really liked academia. Within a year he wants to be the president of the college and the head of the department, and he runs for congress. Hes one of the first republicans in the area youve studied, in a democratic area, and hes part of that cohort of republicans who want to make the south red instead of blue. To use our modern color scheme. Hes elected in 1978. Its husband third try, and his third try, and he conducts a pretty Vicious Campaign that gives a taste of what hes going to do. His opponent, someone named virginia shaffer. And at one point she says in a statement the, if she win, shes going to move to d. C. , her husband her family will still in the district so they can have their lives, he can have his business. And gingrich jumps on it and says, look, she wants to break up her family. Shes a radical, puts everything above moral values. It was really a low blow. And hes in congress, and we can talk about it, but by the early 1980s he is basically saying republicans need to do whatever necessary to finally regain power after being the Minority Party since 1954. And he starts to do these outlandish and pretty vicious things as part of his partisanship. And he catches peoples attention. So one of the ways he does that, of course, is through this group hes the ringleader of, the conservative opportunity society. I dont think a lot of people know about it. Tell us about that. He organizes hes not really an organizationer, its funny. He doesnt want to be on committees, he just wants to get his message out. But he is strategic enough to organize basically a caucus of likeminded conservatives who thought he was a visionary and who were willing to do what he did. Someone named david weber who is another fellow republican who is pretty eager to take on the democrats, stop listening to all these calls for civility and bipartisanship. So he has this small cohort. The numbers change over time, starts at about 12 people, and it grow. And theyre like a team on the house. And when gunning rich has this idea gingrich has this idea that hes going to introduce, their part of that theyre a part of that team. In some ways theyre boot soldiers for the reagan revolution. They are the most aggressive bunch, and theyre trying to shape up their own shake up their own party and say we have to do things in ways that are out of the washington box if were going to win. Right. Theres a staying only two things stand in our way, the democrats and the republicans . Thats right. And the tension was in much of this period that i write about the House Minority leader, this guy named bob michael. Hes from illinois. Hes a get along kind of republican. Hes been there for a while, doesnt like to shake the boat, believes in working with democrats. He Still Believes in bipartisanship. And gingrich hated him in many ways as much as he hated speaker tip oneill and speaker jim wright. So when gingrich get what kid kiddied he do to what did he do to get that message out . The media, right . How did he learn to use the media in the 1980s to get that message out . Thats a big part of the book. This is really before the conservative media world that we know exists. There is conservative talk radio, and its expanding during my story. Fox news doesnt exist yet. Theres no internet web sites like breitbart. So he uses the Mainstream Media as its called today, networks, newspapers, Cable Television as his tool. And so one of the stories i tell in the book which i used to tell for everyone listening, kevin and i taught this class that became fault lines, and i would always tell this story. And its actually when i tell the story, i realize theres probably a good book here. It was in 1984, and he and his group, the conservative opportunity society, they realized at the end of the day anyones allowed to go to the front of the House Chamber and make a speech. Theyre called one minute speeches, special order speeches. Theyre not reserved just for people with power, and anyone can do it. So he and his cabal started going to the floor, and they a made these speeches. They were blistering. They started to say democrats are weak on defense, democrats dont support reagans war against communism. And with the tv cameras rolling with this new station cspan covering the proceedings, they even named specific democrats like eddie boland of massachusetts and said how do you respond to . Whats your answer . And the chamber was silent, and if you were watching on cspan, it looked like the democrats had no response. But what people couldnt see was no one was in the chamber because the rules only leapt you put the cam let you put the camera on the speaker. So it was political theater at its finest, or worst depending on your opinion. Tip oneill gets so so mad, the speaker of the house, he bursts in, he orders the camera to show the chamber to show no ones there, and each then he turns it against him. Look, he broke the rules, hes part of the corrupt democratic establishment. And then oneillgets each angrier, and he says its the lowest thing hes said in husband career, what gingrich was going today democrats. And then the republicans have his words struck from the record saying the speaker spoke improperly and its an embarrassment to kneel. And the to oneill. And the story culminateses with all three networks covered this, nbc, cbs and abc on the nightly news all had stories about gingrich and about what these young mavericks were doing. And that was what gingrich ultimately wanted, and he couldnt be more pleased. So theres many stories where he uses the institutions of the media as a way around his own Party Leaders and to really kind of smear what the democrats are about. Comment. Excellent. You mentioned tip oneill who is, of course, a figure who loom ares large and kind of reagans sparring partner in the 80s. This is this i guess somewhat of a myth of the kind of relationship they had. They were two old irish politicians who kind of got along after hours. Gingrich blows all that up, right . So how does gingrich and the people around him really impact that relationship that grain and oneill that reagan and oneill had . Yeah. I mean, theres a lot of fiction to that. Oneill really didnt like what reagan was doing to the country and thought he was much too far to the right in terms of Economic Policy and social policy. But it was true that i think leaders in both parties, the bob michaels, the tip oneills, they balanced the partisanship with the need for government. And they always were making this tradeup, and that helped them understand when are you going too far. They didnt want to go so far that thaw start to destroy the procedures and the relationships that were simply necessary to govern. Gingrich said throw all that out the window. He was writing memos to other republics saying enough with bipartisanship, enough with civility. All that means is were going to keep losing, and democrats are going to keep flouting their power. And he said you have to teach republicans to be more aggressive, to be more confrontational, to stop negotiating with the republicans. And this, you know, it starts as a, hes seen as a mccarthyite really. Thats how people talk about him. What happens in the 80s, its kind of interesting, gradually, more and more republicans start listening to him, and the more success he has with these tactics, the more intrigue they are with him because they want to have power. And they start to think of that tradeoff which can be costly in american politics. Do i want power so much i enter into alliances with people i know can be dangerous to the institution . Gingrichs rise and the rise of lee atwater, right, as a political strategist in 88. Whats their relationship like . Its a very important relationship. And they directly come into contact. So the heart of the book that i hope everyone buys and enjoys from the strand, but the heart of the book revolves around gingrich after some other conflicts with the democrats, in 1987 tip oneill has retired, and theres a new speaker in town, jim wright, who had been the majority leader. He was from texas. He was an old school democrat, and, you know, he was a liberal, and he believed he was defending against this reagan revolution,s that that the house was the last bastion of democratic politics. But wright was a good target for gingrich who wanted to focus on this theme that democrats were a corrupt establishment. That was his consistent theme. And wright had, there were stories about him in the press about questionable relations with people in the district, and wright sold this book that he published of his speeches and groups that he spoke to, and there were these big, odd stories or they didnt sit quite right. So gingrich uses all of these, and he whips washington up into a frenzy saying that jim wright is the most corrupt speaker ever in american history. It was really pretty small stories about misbehavior or questionable behavior. So thats the heart of the story. And then in 1988, this is another time that the Party Establishment sees the value of beginning gingrich. Whos running for president . George h. W. Bush, reagans vice president. And in may his opponent, mike dukakis the governor of massachusetts is attacking bush and saying that hes sleazy, that hes part of the Reagan Administration that had iran contra, ited had scandal after scandal and that bush was part of it. He a all called it the sleaze factor. So his campaign person was lee atwater. Lee atwater was putting together a pretty Vicious Campaign that played on racial backlash and is was very much a character assassination kind of campaign. And in may when bush is struggling in the polls, he picks up on this story, and he convinces bush to talk about jim wright all the time and to take this story that had really still been on the fringes and mainstream it into the campaign. So atwater saw politics just like gunning rich. It was a blood gingrich. It was a blood sport. Character assassination was totally fine, and it was about storytelling. Gingrich was a historian who understood what storytelling was about. Lee atwater was a professional athlete, and he he thought politics should be run accordingly. Absolutely. Jim wright looms large in this, and again, i think for people who dont follow the story, the thought in the lathe 80s the fought that there was a House Speaker who was a liberal texan, democrat, is going to seem inaccurate. Tell us more about jim wright and how he can came into this story. Yeah, yeah. Hes this texan, born in 1922, gingrich born in 1943, so hes older. Hes very much a democrat who is subscribed to what the new deal represented, pretty much onboard with the great society. He did have spotty moments on civil rights issues, votes against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he believes its going to cost him his seat, later apolo apologetic about thd thought it was one of the great mistakes of his career. But by the 70s and 80s, hes pretty liberal. Hes a little hawkish on foreign policy, but he accepts most of what lyndon fdr through Lyndon Johnson had put together. So, yeah, its hard to imagine a Texas Democrat like that, but thats who he was. And he very much saw Ronald Reagan as a danger. And this is a counterpoint to some of the mythology of the 1980. He really, he thought reagan was pretty right wing and really was taking steps that were dangerous to the fabric of the country. And oversees seas he overseas he thought reagans support of the contras, for example, was really misguided and that there was opportunities to negotiate peace, that he actually pursued on his own that reagan didnt care about. He wasnt someone well liked personally. Even democrats didnt like him. He was cold, he was removed and that hurt him. And if he was old school, prewatergate politics meaning he didnt think about how some of the things he did might look in the eyes of the media ask in the eyes of and in the eyes of washington. He wasnt corrupting, but he operated in that area of gray that many politicians did which could be used against him and actually was. Now, of course the irony of Newt Gingrich of all people lobbing ethics charges at somebody is that gingrichs own life was, shall we say, riddled with some adult problems. Talk about that. How did gingrichs own character issues surface here . Yeah. He had lots of character issues and not only did he have them, they were public. They were written about in the media. So id say theres two streams of problems that by the time he goes after jim wright are known problems. One, his relationships. He had, for example, a pretty difficult divorce with his High School Math teach, and there was a story about it in mother jones in 1984 which was trying to capture what gingrich was like personally. And one of the stories that really caught peoples eye was that while his wife was in the hospital for cancer surgery, he came to discuss divorce with her. And in the article, actually kind of whipped out the papers which wasnt exactly true, although he did have these discussions in the hospital. And he also was known to be someone with a roving eye and who had an affair. And this was known in washington, and it mattered given he was part of this new conservative movement with the moral majority as its basement and he also had ethics problems. At the time he is going after speaker wright for the charge of unethically selling his books to make money, he himself is being charged with having raised must be from Interest Groups to promote a book that he wrote. And story actually in the papers at the climactic moments of this story where hes bringing wright down. But he doesnt care. I mean, its a remarkable part of his psychology. When these emerge, he bulldozes right through them and just says its different, not the same, and he keeps moving forward. Whereas you see with the democrats its much more damaging. Back to democratic character issues, i think one of the greatest gifts gingrich ever got was finally not having a republican president in office and being able to run against, basically, a democratic president in bill clinton. So how does gingrich make hay out of the early years of the Clinton Presidency . Well, thats a good, i think its a good connection with the two decades. In some ways jim wright comes first and bill clinton comes second. And, ag